White House just officially announced that Trump intends to nominate Jon Huntsman as ambassador to Russia.
I'm a little surprised Huntsman would willingly tie himself to this dumpster fire of an administration.
Huntsman has always been more service before self oriented but it helps him in a future potus run. Also good for triangulation between US-Russia-China. He was the former ambassador to China.
Because he speaks fluent Mandarin and has focused a lot of his career on China and ethnic Chinese countries, though. In addition to being ambassador to China, he was also ambassador to Singapore and worked in the Commerce Department on East Asia trade issues under George H.W. Bush and was a Mormon missionary in Taiwan as a young adult. Odd choice for Russia, really. He has no Russia expertise.
His time in China has catapulted him into the "global elite." Notice how The Atlantic and Fareed Zakaria and the Wilson Center worship him? He's clearly marked himself as "in" to the extent that though he has no expertise in Russian culture, he still has the global connections to make a decent Ambassador who is more than qualified.
I think he's one of the few Trump friends among the globalist powers that be. That is a plus. Note that he never went out of his way to attack Trump like other Republican internationalists did.
